


Keeping Score

by ShadowsOffense



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Getting Back Together, M/M, Prompt Fill, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 10:55:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1131819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowsOffense/pseuds/ShadowsOffense
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Cerberus seems to love its logo almost as much as N7 does. What if, when they rebuilt Shepard from meat and tubes, they also marked Shepard with it? Now, even with his/her uniform off, Shepard can never forget who s/he owes her second life...  Shepard hates it.</p>
<p>Presupposes an ME1 romantic relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping Score

_It’s strange_ , Kaidan thought. The way John’s body had seemed to shift on him in the time they had been apart. And it wasn’t just the lack of John’s scars... or the appearance of new ones Kaidan didn’t remember.

“Collector beam weapon,” John grunted as Kaidan’s hand lingered on the raised mess of a burn that ran in an oddly straight line down John’s shoulder.

_I should have been there_ , Kaidan thought, and then, immediately, _no, I shouldn’t have been_. His duty had been to the Alliance and that came before any emotional longings... it had to. John understood. Even as he’d been angry with Kaidan, on Horizon, John had understood. The sadness that had been in his lover’s eyes still killed Kaidan and he wished he could have handled it better. To think he’d called John a traitor... _Too many regrets, let it go_. John had been right, they had forgiven each other and there was no need to hold on to the guilt anymore. _Blank slate, new start_.

“I think it’s time we loose the pants,” Kaidan suggested. 

John turned his head to grin back at Kaidan, cocky and self-assured as ever. That grin had always been all it took to make Kaidan’s heart flip, a light fluttery feeling in his chest... although Shepard usually followed it up by doing something stupidly suicidal, something that made Kaidan question his own sanity for his reaction to the man. Shepard had smiled like that the entire time he had been behind the wheel of the mako after all. 

“You first, Alenko.”

Kaidan rolled his eyes. “Is that an order, Sir?” he teased as he stepped back and began to pull his pants off, anyway. “Because we’re of equal rank now, being SPECTREs and all.”

John’s grin widened. “Seniority.”

Kaidan shook his head, smiling back in spite of himself as he stepped out of his clothing. Peeling his socks off too, he chucked them at the man. “Alright, now you,” he said as John laughed and ducked.

“I don’t know, if you’re already throwing socks, _sweaty_ socks, at me, I think I better keep these on.”

Kaidan crossed his arms and waited.

“Alright, alright,” John smiled again, but it faded as he began to pull off the last of his own clothes. Kaidan took a small step forward, worried. There was something a little off in John’s expression now.

“Is everything alright?” Kaidan asked as he frowned, concerned.

“Yeah, just...” Shepard shook his head and pushed his boxers down. His hand returned to linger self consciously on his hip and Kaidan’s eyes widened to see a row of symbols tattooed there with little black hatch marks below each one. Eclipse, Bloodpack, Bluesuns, Cerberus, a Thresher Maw, and the dark, looming shape of a Reaper.

“Is that a _kill count_!?” Kaidan couldn’t help the way his jaw gaped at the horribly macabre display. He couldn’t equate it with the man before him.

“Yeah,” Shepard replied, not sounding happy about it either. “I woke up with this one,” his fingers moved to the Cerberus symbol. “Figured I’d make The Illusive Man eat it. But I didn’t want him to feel special, so I added the others. It was Jack’s idea.”

“I,” Kaidan didn’t know what to say, except, maybe 'those bastards.' His mind burned with a confused anger, but... there were a _lot_ of hatch marks. He shook his head. _Let it go, move passed it_. He reached for John’s hand and closed his fingers around it, pulling it away from the... _designs_ on the other man’s hip. “You’ll cause a media scandal if they find out about it,” Kaidan joked awkwardly, the words feeling lame. But they did the trick.

“I’m not planning on skinny dipping in the lakes on the Presidium,” Shepard replied, gripping Kaidan’s hand back and stepping closer. Their mouths met, and _this_ was exactly as Kaidan remembered. What he’d always remember, the feel John’s kiss, and that wild, stupid grin.


End file.
